News Blog Archives

May 22, 2006

Motor City Wrapup

So I didn't go to Motor City this year, but I did swing by and visit folks afterwards. All the usual suspects were there: Paul, Sean, JimO, Pam, Michelangelo, Matt Feazell, Katie, Suzanne, and a new guy named Jeff.

Man, it's really good hanging out with the cornwhackers. What great folks. So nice to see everyone, especially because of conversations like these:

On seeing the dance:
JANE: "Do you think I'll get more girls if I wear my new stormtrooper helmet or just carry it?"

Over dinner:
JANE: ___ isn't really a spook. He's more like "spook support".
JIMO: My cousin Louie's in "spook support". I don't think he'll ever get any time in the field, though.
SEAN: Why not?
JIMO: 'Cause he's six foot eleven and a hundred and ten. Unless they have a job for a pipecleaner...
JANE: Oh, man. I smell a minicomic.
SEAN: We could draw all the situations where he could actually infiltrate... like the NBA...
JANE: "Louie Ottaviani... Worst! Spy! Ever!"

Passing around Sean's newly-acquired (and very hot!) book of high-art erotica:
MIKE: Hey, married people! Quit hogging the porn!

On seeing Pam's new mini:
JANE: GAY WEREWOLF! NAKED GAY WEREWOLF! I've been waiting months for this.
PAM: The mini's all-ages-appropriate, but I'll have to show you the stuff in my sketchbook. I had to go buy a special British book of photography to get this one right.
JIMO: Why a British book?
PAM: Well, if you want pictures of guys in their "unadulterated" state... that's not as easy to find in American photography. And this one was four dollars at the used book store.

On getting booze:
SEAN: God, there's no place to buy booze here, *anywhere*.
JANE: Think they sell booze at Petsmart?
MIKE: Only doggy booze.
SEAN: Tequila! (Tequila!) Dog Tequila! (Dog Tequila!)

And I got new minicomics from Sean and Mike and Pam and Suzanne, which is probably everything I would have purchased at the show, anyway. And then we bought two bottles of wine with monkeys on the label, and one without, and then defaced the monkey-free label appropriately. A grand time was had by all, even if I did have to drive five hours just for dinner.

May 19, 2006

No Motor City for me...

Paul is off to the Motor City Comicon. I've lost enough money the last few times I've done the show that I've elected to stay home and work on the book. I will, however, be leaving tomorrow evening to pick up Jim O and crash the Cornwhacker* dinner party, which is always the best part of the show anyway. Hooray!

*"Cornwhacker" is a term for Midwestern comics creators, coined by our own Matt Feazell. We have a tendency to get lumped together, even at faraway shows like SPX.

May 18, 2006

Two steps forward, three steps back

I spent a portion of last night redoing some of the dialogue, and resetting word balloons on several pages. I know, I know, I shouldn't be working on earlier stuff, shush. You can only redact so much before your'e redoing the whole page. But the new style of balloons is much better -- I've started using it on the new pages, and it was so much better that I decided to go retrofit the older pages with the newer style so that they all matched. Shoudn't take too long, and in many places it made the balloons smaller so that more of the images will show. This is a very good thing.

Got the dialogue most of the way done (still fine-tuning a couple pages) and have five or six new pages ballooned. Good progress.

May 14, 2006

More dialoguing

Paul's out of town again, so I spent the better part of the day alternating between rewarding my muse and bludgeoning it to produce work. I've a gnatlike attention span right now, due in large part to the fact that I usually spend several hours a day on the internet, and it's a pretty hard time staying focussed when I'm typing.

I got about 20 pages dialogued today, and most of them were pretty difficult scenes. I'm in a wierd position with this book, in that I'm working from rough script, doing the art, and then filling in the specifics of the dialogue when I letter the pages. This is proving really, really difficult for me. The method is, in large part, the traditional "Marvel Way" of making comics: Writer roughs in the script, gives it to the artist, then the artist turns over the art to the writer, who's theoretically finished the dialogue, and then proceeds to trim or expand the verbiage as necessary to make it flow with the art.

Verdict? I don't much like it. I worked from a pretty polished script on the first book (primarily because I had a writer at the time) and I prefer that method greatly. Problem is, I'm in this bind because I needed to see the art and feel its flow before I could tell specifically how the characters were going to react. I think, having gone through this particular thumbscrew routine one evening too many, I'm going to force myself to complete the next script (whatever it is) before I start the art on the next book.

Blargh. Off to bed.

May 12, 2006

Dialoguing

Dialogued a few pages last night and the night before, and hope to continue with it. Dialogue is really, really hard for me. Fortunately, an old college buddy has lent his editing skills. Hooray for brevity! I hear it's the soul of.... something.

May 8, 2006

Work Blogging

I recently got a not-so-subtle hint from a rather influential source (no, not you, CatBoy) indicating that I need to get my rear in gear on the new book. So, in an effort to keep me honest, I'm going to be posting weekly updates here. Fear, she is a great motivator.

Current Task: Dialogging 39 pages.

Next Task: Complete difficult scene, hopefully with input from prominent scholar.

Last Week's Achievements:Scanning and touching up 39 pages.

Current Pages Status:Cover Complete, 39 pages scanned, touched up and dialogued, 39 more pages scanned and touched up, awaiting dialogue. Total: 78 pages.

May 1, 2006

Gazette!

Here's a link to my article in the Kalamazoo Gazette. It's by the same guy that did my interview in the Ypsi Courier, only with a few things changed. There's a nice photo in the print version, but I forgot to pick myself up a copy because I'm a giant bonehead. If there are any local Kalamazerds around, could someone grab me one?

Such a doofus.